They Still Want Marriage. They Want a Longer Road.
Match and the Kinsey Institute's 2026 Singles in America survey finds 45 percent of U.S. singles want to marry someday, up from 33 percent in 2010, while preferred dating length and ideal marriage age both moved later. Money milestones now sit on the on-ramp.
Auntie still hears "I want to get married" and starts counting months.
Match and the Kinsey Institute's Singles in America survey says more singles want that marriage than did fifteen years ago. They also want more time getting there.
In the 15th annual wave, about 5,000 U.S. singles answered online in March and April 2026. Forty-five percent said they want to marry in the future, up from 33 percent in 2010.
Kinsey also reported that the ideal age for a first marriage and the ideal length of dating before marriage both rose compared with earlier waves. Nearly a third, 30 percent, said they would be open to a long-term committed relationship with no plan to marry.
The share who said they do not want a relationship at all fell to 24 percent, down from a 2021 peak of 32 percent. Partner interest came back. The preferred timeline did not snap short with it.
More singles say they want to marry, and more of them put a long wait and money milestones before the license. That undercuts the dinner-table claim that nobody wants to settle down.
Later, on purpose
Among singles who said they want to marry, only about one in nine wanted a wedding inside the next year.
More than a third pointed to the next two to three years. About a quarter put it more than five years out.
Asked for an ideal first-marriage age, the biggest group picked 25 to 29. The next biggest picked 30 to 34. Nearly one in five said there is no right age at all.
Asked how long they would want to date someone before marrying them, 20.5 percent said two to three years. Another 22 percent said more than three. Put together, over two in five chose a multi-year wait with the person in front of them.
Justin Garcia, Kinsey's executive director and a study co-lead, put it this way in the release: people have clearer expectations, and love can still surprise them. Knowing what matters is different from booking a hall for next spring.
What has to be true first
Money is doing two jobs at once in this survey.
Fifty-two percent said a hard economy made them more interested in finding someone to share a life with, nearly double the share who said that in 2013. Fifty-four percent put the economy or finances in their top three daily stressors.
Plenty of singles also said personal milestones come before a long-term relationship.
Twenty-nine percent want a savings target first. About one in four named a certain income level, paying off debt, or owning a home. Twenty-one percent named a career point.
Kinsey reported those readiness checks rose compared with 2019. The press summary did not reprint the older percentages.
Openness about money still rates as a trust signal for 71 percent in Match's write-up. Seventy percent are open to a prenup or something like it. Eighty-nine percent say both partners should share financial decisions equally.
The wish to marry held. The money checklist got longer.
What commitment looks like on the list
When singles ranked traits for a committed partner, "someone I can trust and confide in" led, chosen by 39 percent as one of their top three. Emotional maturity came next for 28 percent.
For a healthy relationship, mutual respect and open communication each cleared 50 percent. A feeling of safety and security hit 40 percent.
About 34 percent now keep a checklist for a long-term partner, up from 25 percent in 2021. Thirty percent are open to a long-term relationship that never becomes a marriage.
Amanda Gesselman, a Kinsey senior research scientist and co-lead, has said singles care more about what kind of person they want beside them than about a fixed milestone script. The marriage numbers still rose. The common sequence looks like career, cash, years of dating, then a license.
If someone at dinner asks when you are getting serious, name the step you actually mean. The wedding can wait. The savings target, the multi-year dating stretch, and the money talk often come first.